It's Not Wrong
by Woodgie
Summary: Being different's not a crime, you know? SiriusRemus Constructive criticism welcome. JK owns characters etc.


It's not wrong, he knows it's not and yet when people come to him, sneering and adamant for a reason, he finds that he can't form the words to explain. It's not because he was raised that way, no, his family had preferred to spend their time preaching to their children about all the different reasons to discriminate against people rather than explaining in subtle tones that these differences really didn't matter. And they didn't.

Love, the little that he had ever experienced of it whilst at home, was the one topic that his parents dissected and picked at more than anything else. In the back of his mind, he supposed that there was a large chance his parents didn't even know the meaning of the word, but still they raved about it as they were wont to do whenever they had nothing else to rant about, which, unfortunately, was rather often. As the eldest son to an unpolluted, pure-blood family like the Blacks, Sirius was drilled from an early age about the absolute necessity of marrying a beautiful, equally pure-blooded woman, or, if the situation really required, an unattractive but still equally pure-blooded woman.

Developing partial amnesia to the fact that there were only a few pure-blood families left in England, most of which were already integrated with their own, and that incest would most likely become a factor in any future marriage, his parents continued to bluster and moralise that love (whatever it was) must always come second to blood in any match he made. He, as any normal boy, already cringed at the idea of marriage to any girl, but his boyish disgust always soared to new heights whenever he was forced to cast an eye over the lines of pure-blooded daughters paraded before him at any of his parent's social gatherings. He couldn't see any importance in them, anything that singled them out as better marriage material than the millions of other girls walking about the world right outside his door. There was no difference, as far as he was concerned, no difference between these girls that would force him to deny one for another, simply for her blood.

It was then, during that long stretch of his childhood, that Sirius struck the first thick, black line through the stream of his parents' beliefs. The purity of blood became something that made about as much difference to a person as their favourite Quidditch team (though anyone who didn't support the Canons was obviously mad) and then, by the time he slouched off the stool and stumbled over to the thunderstruck Gryffindor table on his very first day at Hogwarts, he knew that they'd probably been wrong about everything else as well. And they were.

Over the years, as his body grew so did his mind, however much this opinion would be scoffed at by his friends, and he went on to rip out every other rule and judgment his family had moulded into him.

'_Mudbloods are polluting our world; they can never truly understand our ways' _'You wouldn't say that if you could see Patricia McAllen transfigure her desk into a luxury three-seater leather couch when the rest of us can't even manage a small wooden chair or when Lily Evans outshines everyone in Charms, even the professor'

''_Association with pure-bloods will enrich your mind, make you great' _'Associating with gits like Lucius Malfoy and Snivellus would kill me, they would make me powerful but I wouldn't be me, I'd be nothing more than a soulless husk, mindless and fake'

'_They should be executed on sight, all those dark creatures, or locked up somewhere where they can't infect us with their disease' _'If you could only see how they're treated, how even when they're constantly kicked down they get back up and carry on, they're more human than the people who condemn them'

In less time than it took his parents to curl their lips in disgust, Sirius had thrown away everything they had ever taught him. All the differences that they had used to separate their son from the world, he had wiped away and made insignificant. To him, muggles were as important in the world as wizards, half-bloods as powerful as pure-bloods, and more besides. Black was as necessary as white, female as strong as male, the young and the elderly just as full of life, the human and the non-human just as capable of feeling pain. Rather than using these differences to remove himself from those around him, Sirius embraced them, he welcomed all that was different and not once did he ever explain why it wasn't wrong to do so.

He still didn't now.

Like everything else, his parents had been wrong about love too. They had said only a pretty, pure-blood, daughter would be his ideal match, only someone similar to him would complete him. God, how could someone be so wrong? He had found love in the one person who was more different to him than anyone could ever be (yet very similar in one, very noticeable way). Honey-haired, golden-eyed and slight, infused with gentle wit and sharp intelligence, half-blooded and cursed by the silver moon, all tender mirth and easy temper with a smile that is as full of overwhelming peace as Sirius' own is full of unbridled joy.

Remus.

Words couldn't say how much Sirius loved him, there simply didn't exist the need to speak it aloud, their love just was and it was just so whole and right that it couldn't be wrong…no matter how different it was. Remus wasn't that pure-blooded girl that his parents' thought Sirius should love, but like he said before, they probably didn't know what love was.

When he looks at the all differences between people, he can explain why prejudice against them is wrong, he can explain why it isn't wrong that people of all colours, genders, backgrounds, bloods and so on should know and love each other. But when people ask him to explain why love, a love like theirs, isn't wrong, he can't explain. When mocking voices toss derisive comments at them as they hold hands and curious eyes wonder at them when they kiss, he can't verbally explain to them why it isn't wrong, even though he sometimes thinks that if he could just let them feel what he feels, then they might understand. He wishes he could paint the furious tide of emotion that makes his heart feel like it's tearing in a delightful way when Remus' lips touch his, or that he could sculpt the utter completeness that surrounds him when he lies in Remus' arms, but he can't.

Love, he thinks, is invulnerable to difference. There are differences that should have the power to put a stop to certain feelings, for instance, that rather wonderful curse James had used to make Snape lust after Mrs Norris one time, well…the differences between the two individuals involved should definitely have stopped Snape from acting on his feelings. But that was different, that wasn't real (no matter how much Sirius had wished it was) but this, their love is, and real love should be independent of differences. Men should be free to love men, pure-bloods to love half-bloods and so on, because surly love is such a singular thing that it breaks free from such petty issues?

It isn't wrong, he knows it's not and when people come to him, asking for his justification as to why, he won't explain, because he doesn't have to. He'll just smile, pull Remus closer and let them figure it out on their own.


End file.
